Talk:Meantime (book)

Meantime (book) has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: January 22, 2023. (Reviewed version).

This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

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A fact from Meantime (book) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 21 January 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that comedian Frankie Boyle's debut novel Meantime is about a Glaswegian drug addict investigating his friend's death?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2023/January. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Meantime (book).

Wikipedia

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cielquiparle (talk) 12:33, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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... that comedian Frankie Boyle's debut novel Meantime is about a Glaswegian drug addict investigating his friend's death? Source: The Guardian "in Frankie Boyle’s first novel, which is set in Glasgow ... Junkie Felix McAveety is trying to solve the murder of his best friend Marina"
- Reviewed: Kill Bill (SZA song)

Created by Bilorv (talk). Self-nominated at 19:15, 1 January 2023 (UTC).[reply]

Article created 1 January. No issues of copyvio or plagiarism. All sources appear reliable. Hook is interesting and sourced. QPQ is done. Looks ready to go. Thriley (talk) 03:13, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Plot

It's less a plot synopsis than a condensed version of the novel: I hardly need to bother reading the book now. Nuttyskin (talk) 18:48, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Meantime (book)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Unexpectedlydian (talk · contribs) 10:47, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Bilorv, I'll be reviewing this article using the table below. Comments to follow shortly! Unexpectedlydian^♯4 talk^‽ 10:47, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Bilorv, I've completed the initial review. A few comments and suggestions are in the table below. Do let me know if you have any questions! Unexpectedlydian^♯4 talk^‽ 17:49, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Lead ~~he wrote for it in hotels Maybe change to "he wrote parts of the novel in hotels"?~~ Background ~~Maybe wikilink the first instance of "lockdown" to COVID-19 lockdowns.~~ Plot ~~Eight months later, Jane sees Ginny on her deathbed. Who is Ginny? I don't think she is mentioned in the article elsewhere.~~ Analysis This is just a suggestion, but maybe this section could be broken into headings to aid comprehension. First para could be "Drugs and alcohol", second para "Social and political commentary", third and fourth "Style". ~~First instance of "Kelly", spell out full name (Stuart Kelly).~~ Reception There are some sentences which I think are over-reliant on quotes. For instance: In a 3.5 star review, a Chortle critic commented that the author's "key strength" is creating a "believable" environment, with "expressive, almost poetic, descriptions of Glasgow life in all its forms" and "sympathy towards his characters" that the reader will share. I think some of these could be rephrased to avoid multiple instances of one-word quotes.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Lead sections Y Layout Y Words to watch None identified Fiction Following the drug addict Felix McAveety's unfocused investigation into his friend Marina's death To make this sentence in-context and a bit clearer, could it start with The story follows drug addict Flexi McAveety's unfocussed investigation ... Then it is set in Glasgow Scotland ... could be its own sentence. List incorporation As per MOS:LISTINTRO, maybe the "Characters" section needs some introductory material? Perhaps the narrator—like Boyle—is white, straight and male, few other characters in the book are would go well here. Let me know what you think.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	Citations and sources are in the appropriate places.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	I am happy with the reliability of the sources in this context. Source check I will check around 5 sources and continue if I find any issues. Wilson, Laura (19 August 2022) Y Anthony, Andrew (31 July 2022) Y Richardson, Jay (14 September 2022) Y Merritt, Stephanie (17 July 2022) Y "Meantime, by Frankie Boyle". Chortle Y
	2c. it contains no original research.	Statements are backed up with citations and sources throughout. Also from reading the sources, I'm content that there is no OR.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	Happy from reading sources that there is no evidence of copyvio, plagiarism or close paraphrasing. Copyvio detector flags attributed quotations.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	Happy that the main aspects of the book are addressed: background, publication, plot, analysis, recpetion.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	The article stays focussed on the book.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	Article is presented neutrally.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	Article history is stable.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	Images are tagged with copyright status and valid fair use rationale is provided for book cover.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Images are relevant and have appropriate captions. ~~I was wondering whether a picture relating to the SNP, for example, might be more appropriate than a Scottish flag? Let me know what you think.~~
	7. Overall assessment.

Thanks for the review, Unexpectedlydian! I've done my best to implement each point, except the two I mention below. I've gone through Reception and I'm sure it could improve further but hopefully it reads better with more sparing quotes.

I think I prefer the Analysis section without subheadings—they have topic sentences but four paragraphs isn't too long for a section and they're on four different topics that are not the shortest to accurately summarise.

I don't think there is a great SNP image to use: the logo is a bit underwhelming and no real politicians are mentioned; the reviewers also didn't delve much into the politics of Boyle's treatment of them. I thought about a University of Glasgow image but it's a little superficial as it's mentioned so briefly in the novel; another representative image of Glasgow would be possible but no specific real locations feature heavily in the book. I like the flag but I can take it out if you think it's redundant.

Let me know if you'd like to come back on anything or if there's any more improvements to make. — Bilorv (talk) 19:29, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Bilorv, thanks for coming back so quickly! Happy to leave the Analysis section as is. Also happy for the Scotland flag to remain, I don't think it's essential but it does fit with the topic. Thank you for looking at the quotations–maybe some of the sentences could be reworded further, but that's not a GA requirement and very happy for this to be promoted now. Well done! Unexpectedlydian^♯4 talk^‽ 20:24, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]